But, is there a room for a site with only 10 shows, but all of them amazing (like Something To Be Desired and We Need Girlfriends)? Is there a place for a destination with high quality content only – the best of web shows? In other words, does it make sense to create a brand that only broadcast the best shows, and is a sign of quality, just like HBO logo is for me?

The last two days I’ve attended Blogference, the first international Bloggers conference in Israel. The event, organized by the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya, managed to create local buzz, that was increased when people learned about the impressive guest list:

I had the pleasure to host two panels on the event: another installment of the Internet TV brainstorming, and a joint panel with Om Malik, where he gave tips to companies and bloggers about innovation journalism (in other words – how to get covered on his blog…).

The Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya (Israel) is having the first International bloggers conference. The guys behind the event managed to bring some heavy weights- Om Malik, Andrew Baron from Rocketboom fame, Kent Nichols & Douglas Sarine from Ask a Ninja, and Justin Kownacki from “Something to be desired“. I am honored to join this event, doing a session on how to increase Internet TV viewership – similar to the one in Podcamp Europe. It will be very interesting to get local views on this topic, as well as do a brainstorming session in a conference (and not an un-conference…).

I am certain it is going to be an amazing event, thanks to the hard work done by everyone in IDC.

I had the pleasure of doing a brainstorming session at Podcamp EU, discussing ways to increase internet TV viewership. I had a great time at this session, and learned a lot from everyone in the room, as well from comments that followed.

Most of the participants talked about the need to make content discovery and consumption much easier, and some also talked about the fact that there is not enough interesting content out there. Some participants challenged the thesis that we actually have a problem – especially a smart young guy that said that his generation, the early twenties and late teens, is the important one, not the older ones, and this generation doesn’t have a problem to find the content and watch it. We discussed a lot the need for branding and baiting people to see new shows.

Some solutions were suggested:
1. Trailers for shows, to get people to watch the first episode
2. Printed guides for Internet TV, that can communicate with Apple TV for example, and make subscription simple.
3. From a different angle – get as much product placement as possible and increase your budget for higher production quality.

The discussion didn’t end there:

Chris Brogan covered the panel, and added his view: …”I believe the winners of the Internet TV world are those who will band together, move audience by way of driving awareness, and interact well with other producers such that you put good stuff together in one easy-to-find locations…”. Check out his post, and its accompanying 12 comments…Jeff Pulver take: …”Seems to me that this is a classic long tail play. The long and simple of it. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be HUGE breakout hits that are only available on the Internet and such hits will have mainstream adoption. It is going to happen. In fact for some people, it already has. During the past year a number of people have signed contracts with media companies who were discovered on the Internet…”Chris Hambley left a lengthy comment on my original post and was kind enough to record the session – you can find it here.

I encourage everyone to read these posts and their comments – it added a lot of value to the discussion.

Now, here is a challenge for you. How can we keep this discussion alive? We are all interested in increasing viewership – so we need to cooperate in best practices and lessons. What’s your take on that?

Thank you all for being a part of this discussion, online and offline.

“…In the near future, I expect cable companies may start to suffer a similar parallel fate as the wireline phone companies. This eventually will mean billions of dollars of revenue loss without any notion of being able to replace the lost revenue. And I expect we will start to see this trend happen first in the 16-24 year old demographic.

How does this happen? It happens because there is a portion of the existing 16-24 generation which does not watch traditional broadcast TV and they are not watching Cable TV. What they are watching is TV content on the internet. And when these kids leave home and go off to college, they are not signing up for cable TV service in their dorm rooms. Instead they are continuing to watch their favorite TV shows thanks to BitTorrent or are going online to the network websites to catch up with a missed show or in some cases they are also going to iTunes and purchasing the shows to watch on their video iPods and computers…”

I agree, though believe that there are also the 25-35 age group who are willing to consume media in non-traditional ways, as long as it is good.

It seems to me that these industries are kind of dinosaurs, looking at the meteor coming and thinking that everything will be ok. Just like some of the big production companies, missing the fact that people create good content for fraction of the money they are spending.

The guys behind Something To Be Desired (STBD), Galacticast, and other great shows have one thing in common – they know how to create high quality content on the cheap. Most of them are not making a dime of their work. This is not their fault – it is a market that needs to mature. But still, they create great content in micro budgets.

How can STBD make a show for fraction of the cost of a regular TV show?

First of all they have one camera. Unbelievable, right? With smart editing they manage to make it look as if there are at least two cameras on set. Second, all their actors are volunteers. So, right, it is harder to do it for a long period with professional actors, but it is a creative way to do things. Third, they don’t have separate guys for editing, directing, sound, lighting, and overall production responsibility. It is all the same guy with the T-shirt. And fourth, their actors are involved in the script writing. Now compare that with the set of Studio 60….

As we all know, the world of television is changing. It is harder to get high rating for shows that are not event based. This viewership fragmentation reduces the economic value of single productions, and in time force old media producers to cut their budgets. So if there is one thing the old media guys can learn from these new energetic creators is how, with some creativity, to do things much cheaper than in the regular let’s-have-a-battalion-of-people-on-the-set-cause-everyone-does-one-thing approach.

This is not new. Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi for 7000$, using the same concepts. Did it change the movie industry? No. but I am certain that when gross revenues will drop, the Hollywood guys will wake up. TV industry can do it now.